Finlay Donovan Is Killing It(Finlay Donovan #1)(32)

“Thanks,” he said, wiping the pads of his fingers.

“Baker!” Julian turned toward the bar. A balding man with a broad belly held the door open and tapped his watch. I ducked my head, the loose blond strands falling over my face as I moved behind Julian, letting his body obscure me from the man’s view. Julian acknowledged the man with a nod.

“That’s my boss. I’ve got to go. You sure you don’t want to stick around for a while?”

“I can’t,” I said quickly, gesturing behind me to the humming engine. “I have to get home. To my kids. And … you know … real estate stuff.”

“Right.” His mouth quirked up on one side. It was a great smile—genuine and warm. The kind of smile that made it hard for me to lie.

“But thanks for jumping me.” His sunlit eyebrows disappeared under his curls, and heat poured across my cheeks. “That … Wow, that did not come out the way I intended it to. I’m sorry. It’s just been a really, really weird day.”

“It’s okay. I know what you mean.” He bit his lip to keep a laugh from escaping. I wanted to crawl under the concrete as he handed me back Zach’s burp rag. “Still have my number?”

I nodded.

“Then I hope I’ll be seeing you around, Theresa.” He backed toward his Jeep, his eyes trailing over me in a way that felt totally innocent yet still managed to melt the skin from my bones. I climbed into the van and thumbed through my phone, checking to make sure his number was there as he swung his Jeep back into its parking space.

My fingers hovered over the keys as he sauntered into The Lush with his dress shirt slung over his shoulder. If I texted him, he’d have my number. And I was sure that would be a very, very bad idea. Harris was in the ground, and I’d just accepted fifty thousand dollars for murdering him. I should’ve been putting as much distance as possible between me and the place Harris and I were last seen together.

And yet …

Still okay with a minivan? I typed fast and hit send before I could change my mind. Clearly, I had not yet found my good judgment in this parking lot.

I dropped my head against the steering wheel, the seconds drawing out painfully long while I waited for his reply. What if I’d misread him? What if he was just being polite? What if the burp rag killed the moment?

My phone buzzed in my lap. I sat up and covered my eyes, barely brave enough to read his text through the gap between my fingers.

Pick me up anytime. You know where to find me.

I glanced up at the tinted windows of The Lush. I could just make out Julian’s white dress shirt on the other side, the subtle wave of his hand through the glass. I lifted my fingers from the steering wheel, wondering if he could see me wave back. Wondering if he saw through me—everything about me—the way he’d seen straight through me last night.





CHAPTER 16





Exhaustion washed over me as I stood in the garage thirty minutes later, staring at the space where we’d wrapped Harris Mickler’s body just yesterday. The concrete floor was wet and smelled faintly of bleach, the bay door left open to the afternoon sunshine to dry it. Vero must have hosed it out while I was gone. The little pink trowel had been washed and dried, returned to its usual place on the pegboard. Harris Mickler’s personal possessions had been wiped clean and locked in his car at The Lush. Steven’s shovel was back in his shed. And I’d just burned through twenty dollars in quarters vacuuming every trace of Harris Mickler from my minivan. I’d done everything I could think of to cover our tracks, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I was missing something.

Guilt. This gnawing, nagging feeling that kept pulling me back to the garage had to be guilt. And it would probably follow me around for the rest of my life.

A flutter caught my attention across the street, the subtle shift of Mrs. Haggerty’s kitchen curtain falling shut. I strode to the ga rage door, stretching up on my tiptoes to drag it down with both hands. It slammed closed, rattling the garage.

Stupid. I’d been so stupid. I sank down on the short wooden step to the kitchen as my eyes adjusted to the dark, all the what-ifs of last night crashing down around me, as heavy and jarring as that damn garage door.

What if I had never called Patricia Mickler?… What if I’d never borrowed Theresa’s dress and gone to that stupid bar?… What if I’d never stuffed Harris in my van?… What if I’d never driven him here, to my own freaking home?… What if I hadn’t left the engine running after I closed my gara—

My back stiffened, one chilled muscle at a time. As I lifted my head, my focus jumped from the van to the garage door. The details of the night before were still fuzzy in my mind, blurred by champagne and panic, as if someone had taken an eraser to the edges, but I remembered … I remembered pulling into the driveway. Remembered clicking the remote on the visor and waiting for the door to grind open. The bright cone of the van’s headlights had illuminated the pegboard and that little pink trowel, and I distinctly remembered getting out of the van and squeezing between the workbench and the bumper, eyes narrowed against the glare as I’d raced into the house. The kitchen had been dark. Quiet except for the hum of the engine through the wall as I’d slid down it and made that call to my sister … Those details in my memory were all vivid and clear.